Kilip Andrew's first touch of a Sherrin football came five years ago, when he went to ''an Aussie guy's house'' on his native Erakor, an island of Vanuatu. He was taken to a park and shown how to kick and handball. He fell in love.

Now, the 20-year-old has a house full of footballs, and 300 kids under his charge in the local Auskick competition. As with his own game, he is thinking big. ''My target for this year, I'm heading for 500 kids,'' Andrew says.

The 25 squad members from the South Pacific AFL academy were put through the same draft combine testing in Wellington on Tuesday as the teenagers earmarked for greatness each November. Athletically, there was obvious depth in the talent pool; technically, there is much to be done. Yet it was clear these are young men whose enjoyment of sport hasn't yet been challenged by the vast leap into an arena too often styled as life and death.

Andrew's love of what he was doing was as eye-catching as his hairstyle, which the AFL's international development boss, Tony Woods, imagined would make him an overnight sensation if his football dreams come true.

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Asked what sort of player he is, Andrew beamed. ''I'm happy in the field, always happy, alway smiling. And I play hard, too, always fight to get the ball. I make sure I work as a team with my mate.''

Wait for crunch

Playing in the four-team local competition, Andrew feels as if he's mixing several sports - soccer, rugby, basketball among them - into one. And for Erakor Golden Star, a new code that incorporates some hopscotch, thanks to a challenging characteristic of their home ground.

Every night, crabs make their way up the beach on to Erakor's oval and start digging. Their pot-holed gift to the footballers used to cause ankle sprains, but while Andrew reports they took care to fill them when hosting a visiting team from Adelaide's Concordia College, he says the locals have simply hardened up and got on with it.

''The boys used to dodge, but now we don't care - if there's a crab hole, bang, run on top of it. One of the expats come over, they were like, 'Arrghh!' We're like, 'No, just go for it!'''

Different flavour

Woods says each of the six South Pacific nations represented in Tuesday's talent quest ''brings their own look and feel'' as far as body type and the way they play the game. He has a special liking for the Papua New Guinea boys for their hardness and resilience.

''The conditions they grew up playing footy in are quite extraordinary, you'd liken it to some of the remote indigenous communities in Australia, and that's reflected in the way they approach the game. They're highly skilful, but they're really tough.''

While the former Magpie and Hawk obviously has a vested interest in spruiking overseas talent, his passion for growing the game is tangible. He could tell stories all day of the South Pacific region alone, like Nauru, where having 1500 of its 10,000 people playing football makes it arguably the No. 1 AFL nation in the world.

And, of course, New Zealand, a frontier Woods says is blessed with more athletic talent than the fertile fields of Ireland, and which will tick over 35,000 participants this year, from ''KiwiKick'' level up to the local competition of expats and increasingly interested locals.

''It's time,'' Woods says. ''Any Australian who denies that New Zealanders are talented athletes and have a long history of batting above their weight in terms of per capita performance, that's head-in-the sand stuff. There's a talented pool of athletes over here. All we've got to do is give them the opportunity to play AFL instead of rugby or soccer, and I think you'll find a natural transition.''

Kurt makes way

One who Woods estimates will make a senior Hawthorn footballer within the next three years is Kurt Heatherley.

The poster boy for the Kiwi footy movement was signed by the Hawks as a 14-year-old on the ability he showed as a basketballer. Four years later, he is one of four international rookies from New Zealand on the club's list.

''I thought they were just taking the piss out of me,'' Heatherley said of Hawthorn's initial interest, back when he didn't even know there were four posts at either end. Now, he can think of nothing better than playing in a grand final in front of 100,000 people.

On Tuesday, he was bailed up by Glen Osborne, the charismatic host of Bring Your Boots, Oz on Maori TV. Having played 29 times for the All Blacks in the late 1990s, ''Oz'' is well placed to comment on whether poaching local talent will cause resentment in rugby ranks.

''For me, it's not about the All Blacks, it's about the kids and what they want to make of their lives,'' says Osborne, who used to take an interest in Australian rules ''back when that mad Energizer Jacko fellow was playing''.

''I know a lot of them want to make the All Blacks, but it's giving them an opportunity to make something of themselves - whether it is in rugby union, whether it is in AFL, or basketball, whatever. A chance to blossom in other sports overseas.''

Put the boots in

In the middle of this melting pot of novice footballers on Tuesday stood Andrew Cadzow, the AFL's Asia-Pacific development officer, padding about in his socks. His runners had found their way onto the feet of a boy from PNG. Other hopefuls went through their paces wearing flat-soled sandshoes hopelessly ill-suited to the task.

''We don't argue - if we stopped them wearing those shoes they wouldn't be playing,'' Cadzow says. ''They're coming from huts and villages, some from some amazing places. If we make an issue of it, a 16-year-old boy will be very upset and we'll never see him again.''

And that would deny a boy the sort of chance Kilip Andrew can't wait for - to play in the curtain-raiser on Thursday. ''I'm going to show everyone that this is a boy from Vanuatu, representing his country, trying his best.''